Jordan's Dad

I have a confession to make. Nothing terrifically earth-shattering, but it does have the potential to really monkey-wrench my upcoming AT hike: I don’t like hiking in the rain. I mean, I REALLY don’t like hiking in the rain. According to my daughter, “when it starts raining, you start hiking really fast.”

Now, I’ve been hiking in the rain. I’ve been hiking on forested ridges with thunder crashing overhead, I’ve slogged through mud, I’ve waited for a group of boy scouts to vacate ...

Tags: coping with rain

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I think you can probably tell from my previous posts that if I’m a gram weenie I’m a pretty crappy one. I AM concerned with minimizing the weight of the house on my back, I do the research, I compare, and then I spend a whole crapton of money on the gear I intend to use. I go out hiking and camping and test it, and if it doesn’t work for me I make adjustments. That goes for just about everything in my pack.

About the only exception to this rule is electronics. For my entire professional ...

Tags: electronics on the trail, map and compass

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I joined the US Navy in 1978, right out of High School. I did boot camp at NTC San Diego (where my twin uncle had boot camp), then Basic Electricity and Electronics school (also in San Diego), and then Electronics Technician Class 'A' school in Great Lakes, Illinois. One of my classmates in ET ‘A’ school was a guy from Montana named Steve Hudecek, who would become my best friend.

Steve and I had ET ‘A’ school together, and we would have had Navy Nuclear Power school together as ...

Tags: big four, packs, trail vs. camp comfort

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And so, it begins.

Last Monday, I informed the staff where I work that I would be retiring in December, and that I was planning to hike the Appalachian Trail next year. Their reaction was a little unsatisfying; I had hoped for wailing and gnashing of teeth, but all I got was a couple of subdued, “congratulations.” At any rate, as they say (and you know how THEY are) the die is cast. Too many people know about my plans, too many people want photos, for me to back out now short of ...

Tags: testing, why i'm doing this

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